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G'day,
I finally decided to put my tuppence worth in
about the distribution maps in field guides. At least for areas like
central Australia I consider that the tiny maps found in most guides are
adequate. The most authoritative information on Australian bird
distributions is the Australian Bird Atlas. This shows presence of a
species in one degree squares, each about 100 km across. Towards the edge
of a species range there is a lot of uncertainty. Many squares were little
visited, possibly the correct habitat for a species was not searched, perhaps
the searchers were unlucky not to find a species, or they were there at the
wrong time of year or in a drought season. Atlas 2 may improve things
slightly, but the same problems of lack of observers will still remain. If
you don't believe me go to the NT Bird Atlas site, http://birds.rhyme.com.au/default.htm
and look at the records to date for some of the less common, or even relatively
common species.
Given the above a scale of 1: 100 million is fine
for most of Australia.
Regards,
Robert Read
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